1990 (12 page)

'It doesn't matter to me,' she responded, casually. 'I was thinking of you, that's all. Depends on who you're seeing after me.'

'What time then?' There were less pleasant ways of opposing the regime than spending an evening with Delly Lomas. The journalist looked suitably eager.

'Half past seven. It's two exclusives you're coming for. One for tomorrow. One for the day after,' she promised.

He eyed her knowingly. 'You must be secretly in love with me, or something.'

'It's "or something",' she confirmed, laughing, her long neck curving sensually, so that he felt both drawn and repelled. It was like playing with a tarantula.

If Kyle had any secret idea that an intimate, candlelit dinner for two would be waiting when he arrived at her flat that evening, he was disappointed. Admittedly, she poured him a glass of wine and sat him cosily beside her on the sofa, but the living room was fully lit and the children clearly audible next door.

He retaliated by heckling her about the possibility of their being bugged. After all, she was the one spilling official secrets. She replied, with some asperity, that not only was she up-to-date in bugging techniques, but in anti-b.ts. also.

So he needled her about civil servants' privileges. 'Who else in this country can be sure of such privacy?'

'You don't do so badly,' she retorted.

'I make sure of that.'

She cut through to business. 'You have another two hours before your deadline. And I have one condition.'

'Catch Twenty-Two?'

'No catch. I give you an exclusive for tomorrow and another for the day after,' she confirmed. 'But you run them in the order I say.'

'I don't write to instructions from civil servants - not even super ones with sexy mouths,' the journalist protested, indignantly.

'Then drink up and I'll see all the media get the stories,' she flashed.

'It's a deal.' Kyle capitulated almost instantly.

She crossed to collect her brief-case from an occasional table by the door and brought out a photograph, a poker-faced line-up of four men and a woman, like a multiple police record still.

'That lot have been getting illegal emigrants out from Liverpool.' The newsman tensed and stared at it. '...at least twenty a week over the past year.'

'That's bad.' His mind darted to the last meeting with Cursley. They had had a very near miss. 'You've got them all?'

'They'll be charged the day after tomorrow.'

He studied the faces and masked his own with disapproval. 'Cleaning up, were they?'

'I don't know what their price was.'

'Could have been a free service, of course,' he suggested.

'Do you believe that?'

'No. People do this for greed,' he agreed. 'What will they get? Five years each?'

'Three of them will. Two should get off with treatment at the Institute for Social Responsibility...'

'With a spell in one of the new Adult Rehabilitation Centres?'

'Possibly,' she confirmed, beginning to pour him another drink. 'Now, I'll give you the details, but not on tape.'

The columnist pulled out his notebook.

'This is for publication tomorrow,' she pointed out.

'And the other?'

'I'll give you that tomorrow. After this one's appeared.' She detailed her department's haul efficiently, listing names, addresses, ages and official charges.

There were completely opposite reactions in the independent newspaper office and the PCD headquarters to the appearance of the two consecutive front page leads.

Tim Greaves was trumpet blowing. 'Beautiful, beautiful! Poetry!'

Herbert Skardon was livid. 'Our Liverpool coup undone at a stroke,' he shouted at his deputies and the Chief Emigration Officer sitting before him as he ranted on, looking faintly aggrieved as usual. He slammed a stack of newspapers with a paperweight. 'Here they all are following Kyle about the Liverpool arrests and he has to come up with this bilge about illegal emigrants getting out as unskilled workers on package holidays. It makes us look like idiots.'

Delly Lomas' face was bland and even Tasker seemed unperturbed. 'At least none of them have been able to take out any capital except the holiday allowance,' he offered, short-sightedly.

His boss choked, eyes bulging and veins swelling, 'That's a great consolation. They've had to leave their houses and furniture and motor cars. But they're out, Tasker! The bastards have got out!'

His heavy breathing rasped through the following pause, until Delly decided it was time she created a good impression. 'I want to know who gave Kyle
today's
story,' she said, in simulated pique. 'After all the work I put in on him to get yesterday's.'

'I intend to find out, Delly, don't you worry,' the Controller nodded towards her with grim determination. 'This is my department and it makes us look stupid. It makes ME look stupid!' He had turned to glare at Nichols. 'You have nine thousand emigration officials and it's my bet that it's one of them who's blabbed!'

Jack Nichols drew himself up, affronted. 'There's not a shred of proof that it's one of my men.'

Skardon tossed him a mean look and thumped his fist dramatically on the heap of newspapers. 'Work on Kyle, Delly,' he directed, thrusting out his jaw. 'I want to know where he got this garbage. I want him put in line. If it's that traitor among us he calls Faceless...!' The consequences for Faceless obviously defied description.

His woman deputy gave a relaxed smile and stood up, 'I'll call Kyle now.'

'That might not be so easy,' put in Tasker.

'What?' rapped his boss.

'I checked with the location room just before I came here. He went off their screen an hour ago.'

Pure hatred twisted the Controller's face, before he brandished a fist at them dismissively. For a moment, Delly Lomas felt almost sorry for him.

She might even have begun to pity herself had she been able to watch Kyle's activities at that moment. He had returned to the scrap yard, where Cursley was waiting with a van.

One by one and surreptitiously, the rejects picked out at the Ombudsman's hearing arrived; the aggressive young manager, the aerospace designer, the girl student and, finally, Alan Vickers.

The men carried nothing, not even overnight bags. The girl carried a small handbag. All four looked frightened, but resolute, as Kyle directed them into the rear of the van, shaking hands with each, before locking the rear doors and banging on the metal roof. At the signal, Cursley put the vehicle into gear and drove away.

When it arrived at the heliport, the van was carrying a number of perforated alloy containers, each stamped with a stencilled destination in France. As they were being carefully unloaded and set out near the helicopter's cargo door for checking, Dave Brett arrived in a hurry. He looked edgy, his eyes darting over them.

'There's trouble,' he muttered. 'They've changed the bloody duty roster. Gorman's been sent to inspect some yacht in Chichester.'

'Let's get 'em back in the van,' exclaimed Cursley.

'There's no time,' the agent replied, indicating two emigration officers already crossing the hardstanding towards them. One was the man who had helped with the Scholes escape. The other was unknown, but of about the same age and seniority.

'Isn't he with us?' murmured Cursley. Brett shook his head. 'Oh Jesus!' He turned to help unload the last container from the van, working noisily in an effort to cause distraction.

The first officer caught Brett's eye and moved to put quick crayon ticks against two of the perforated crates, but the other reached the third container and stood over it with obvious interest.

Dave Brett's fists knotted against his side. If they had all been up an alley instead of in the middle of the open heliport, the unknown E.O. would have stood no chance.

As it was, the agent tried to put over the usual explanation with assumed calmness, 'Chemicals. They need ventilation.' But this was a hard-faced old hand, with no intention of being put off.

'I know this stuff. It's O.K.,' the first emigration officer asserted, his eyes betraying his concern.

The other hesitated, then swung round on the agent. 'Open it up!'

'I told you. They're O.K.,' the first said again, lamely.

'Ninety nine out of a hundred usually are,' responded his colleague, before repeating, 'Open it up!'

'These chemicals shouldn't be exposed to the weather,' Brett blurted in desperation.

'And yet they need air?' the emigration officer pounced, then pointed at the container again. 'Open it!'

There was murder in the agent's eyes as he beckoned to the loader-checker. The first officer moved towards the other, 'Come on, Bill. Take my word for it.' But it was no use. The new man shook his head and insisted. The crate had to be opened.

The loader-checker paused over it, a large screwdriver clenched in his hand like a weapon. For a moment, it looked as though he might plunge it into the inspector, but at last he bent, slowly unlocked the six screws and lifted the lid.

Crouched inside were Doctor Vickers and Carol Harper. The young woman glared up at the emigration officers in anger, no sign of pleading in her eyes now. Dave Brett moved in, flourishing a wallet stuffed with PS50 notes. There was a very long silence.

The official looked from the couple in the container to his colleague and Cursley, then, finally, to Brett. 'You can put that away,' he nodded at the wallet.

Carol Harper shifted to stand up. The new emigration officer put a gentle hand on her head and pushed her down again.

The relief all round was unbearable, wordless, each participant in the scene mentally reeling. Then the men on the tarmac caught a last glimpse of Vickers and the girl, tears in her eyes, as the lid was replaced and the new emigration sympathiser ticked the container with his crayon, even before the screws were finally tightened.

Dave Brett was stunned by their luck. After a lifetime of cut-throat deals, it always shook him to discover one person after another for whom bucking the authoritarian system meant more than money.

A white streak of saliva gathered in a corner of the Controller's mouth as he stormed round his office, berating his staff yet again. '...And less than a fortnight after his appeal's turned down, this Doctor Vickers turns up in California. And we have this load of sentimental trash!' His hands splayed down on the spread of the world's press laid across his desk. 'All these international do-gooders threatening to go to the Human Rights Commission in Geneva unless we let out Vickers' wife and child immediately!'

Gone indeed were the days when Herbert Skardon had enjoyed assuming a posture of controlled dignity. Delly Lomas thought she could detect the unmistakable beginnings of a tic by his left nostril.

'The Yanks are on at us. The French. The Germans.' He was fuming. 'But when even the Russians join in the damn chorus - with their record!' He thought of sitting down, but could not bring himself to and galloped to the far end of the room instead, twirling round when he reached the wall. 'It has to stop! This Vickers reckons five others got out with him.' He strode up to tower over Jack Nichols. 'This country's like a sieve and the Home Secretary won't put up with much more of it, I can tell you.'

'Then he should approve a big increase in our establishment.' Delly had watched the whole display with calculating eyes.

Skardon spun round, his voice reedy with frustration. 'He reckons we're overmanned now. And you know it, Delly. That's mischievous. You know he's already accused me of empire-building.'

The woman contemplated him, coolly. 'Then we should improve the quality. A lot of our surveillance inspectors are just boy scouts. Too many second-raters.' Allowing her colleagues little time to work out just which of them was being smeared, she added, 'Anyway, I intend to check on the Vickers case myself. It might lead us to smash the major ring...'

Henry Tasker's sly glance slid after her as she went out. Not long afterwards, he left for lunch early and hurried to Charing Cross Station on foot, stepped into one of the shatterproof plastic bubbles in the forecourt and picked up a telephone, covering the mouthpiece with his handkerchief and dialling out. Kyle asked his name.

'Never mind,' Tasker distorted his voice. 'But if you want some interesting copy, I should be at the Benson Comprehensive School playground around two thirty.'

'Can you tell me why?' the newsman probed.

'Have you got the place and time?' queried Tasker.

'Yes.'

The deputy hung up immediately. At the other end of the line, the columnist looked at his receiver for a moment before replacing it. A lot of his tip-offs came this way and so he was interested, but not surprised.

'Friend or foe?' questioned Greaves.

'I'll not know till around two-thirty at the earliest.'

He dropped into the small bistro on the corner of Bouverie Street for a quick lunch. The owner had cleverly adapted to the restraints of the siege economy and now specialised in skilfully prepared peasant dishes, which made the most of simple ingredients. Kyle savoured the cassoulet with pleasure and set out for the school in a mood of rare wellbeing, slightly seasoned by the anticipation which always accompanied a mystery lead.

The school building had only recently been completed. It was several storeys high. Its factory unit concrete walls were sparsely punctuated by very small slits. Glass-dominated constructions, such as the PCD headquarters, were no longer fashionable, having lost their popularity since it had been agreed that they were too cold in winter and too hot in summer. Architectural design had therefore swung away from the idea of windows and the children in the new school worked perpetually in artificial light.

In the playground, a netball game was in progress and, as Kyle parked in front of the railings, he saw Delly Lomas on the touchline talking to a schoolgirl. Avoiding the nearest gate, he made his way through the main entrance and, as he came up behind them, he saw that the schoolgirl was Alan Vickers' daughter, Mary.

'Delly,' he said, loudly.

She turned quickly and was obviously startled, blushing as he gazed first at her and then at the child. Then she looked down and said, 'I'll not be long, Mary.'